The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Managing Director, Maikanti Baru stated that pipeline vandals and oil thieves have lost Nigeria 560,000 barrels of crude to the refineries as feedstock and 109m litres of petroleum products between January and May 2016. He added that the country’s national budget was based on 2.2mb/d of crude oil production, but pipeline vandalism has resulted in a reduction of about 700,000b/d of oil, reported The Guardian.
Baru revealed that natural gas supply to power plants has also been impacted with a drop from 1400mcf/d of gas to below 700mcf/d.
Furthermore, the Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, declared that the nation’s crude oil production has fallen from an average of 2.2mb/d to as low as 1.3mb/d, Energy Mix informed.
Kachikwu said: “We are presently passing through very grave circumstances in Nigeria. Oil that was at a price of about $120 is at about $42 per barrel. The price has continued to decrease.” He concluded that the accumulative effect of production and price declines is more than a 60% drop in the country’s income.
